Apple rejects a quarter of updates and new apps in App Store

Last year, Apple rejected a quarter of all developer submissions for inclusion in the App Store. This is evident from figures that the manufacturer has put online for the first time. There are a total of 6.1 million submissions, of which 1.6 million have been rejected.

Most disapprovals were due to performance of the apps or games in question, says Apple. About a million disapprovals were due to this. Legal reasons also played a major role, with more than 440,000 apps and games disapproved for that reason. A design that does not meet the guidelines also turned out to be a reason for the rejection of many apps and games.

A small minority still end up in the App Store after the disapproval: about 250,000, less than 1 in 6 apps and games that are disapproved. The report also states that Apple has removed 186,000 apps. Almost all of these were due to non-compliance with design guidelines or fraud.

Apple also shared figures about the number of users of the App Store. That’s over 650 million weekly, doing nearly 41 billion automatic app updates each week. About 500 million app updates happen manually every week. The number of downloads of new apps is around 750 million every week.

Apple publishes the App Store Transparency Report for the first time. The App Store has existed since 2008. Apple agreed with developers in 2021 that it would share figures about the App Store to be more transparent about the approval or rejection process.